How do wipe my very old Macbook?
September 25, 2022 6:57 AM Subscribe
There's an e-waste drop off this afternoon and I'd like to get rid of an old macbook. It's white plastic, so really old. I've deleted everything. It still has my login name, which I don't really care about. But no emails or documents. Is this good enough? Do I have to do some official "wipe"? If so, how do I do that? I went to disk utilities, and there's an erase option there, but the buttons were grayed out.
Apparently newer models have an option under System Preferences to Erase All Content and Settings, but this old one doesn't have that.
Apparently newer models have an option under System Preferences to Erase All Content and Settings, but this old one doesn't have that.
It won’t let you erase a disk that you’re currently using. Walk through the guide that’s linked above, particularly the part where you boot into recovery mode and then erase the disk.
posted by zamboni at 8:17 AM on September 25, 2022
posted by zamboni at 8:17 AM on September 25, 2022
Response by poster: I might be missing something, but I think the instructions above don't apply to my very old (2006?) macbook. For instance, the instruction to press command + R when you turn it on does nothing. I've tried it several times and I just come back to the desktop.
posted by gigondas at 8:26 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by gigondas at 8:26 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yeah, recent instructions won’t apply to a Mac that old. Does Startup Manager (holding Opt during boot) show you a recovery partition? Try starting from that disk.
posted by zamboni at 8:42 AM on September 25, 2022
posted by zamboni at 8:42 AM on September 25, 2022
Response by poster: Thanks, Zamboni. That looked promising, but it ultimately took me back to my desktop. There were no other options.
Given that I've deleted my whole desktop, all docs and emails, is it really ill advised to turn it in as is?
posted by gigondas at 9:00 AM on September 25, 2022
Given that I've deleted my whole desktop, all docs and emails, is it really ill advised to turn it in as is?
posted by gigondas at 9:00 AM on September 25, 2022
If we persist in trying to do a full wipe, it’d probably involve making a boot installer for the machine, starting that up, then run the erase from there. (Do you have the DVD that might have originally come with the laptop, and does it have a working drive?)
Alternatively, if you have another computer and the appropriate adapters, you could try booting it into Target Disk Mode, attach it to the other computer, and wipe it from there.
You’ll want to be careful that you don’t accidentally wipe some other attached disk.
Given that I've deleted my whole desktop, all docs and emails, is it really ill advised to turn it in as is?
Probably not a huge deal. You’ve emptied the trash, right?
posted by zamboni at 9:25 AM on September 25, 2022
Alternatively, if you have another computer and the appropriate adapters, you could try booting it into Target Disk Mode, attach it to the other computer, and wipe it from there.
You’ll want to be careful that you don’t accidentally wipe some other attached disk.
Given that I've deleted my whole desktop, all docs and emails, is it really ill advised to turn it in as is?
Probably not a huge deal. You’ve emptied the trash, right?
posted by zamboni at 9:25 AM on September 25, 2022
When all else fails, get physical - just remove and destroy the hard drive.
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 9:26 AM on September 25, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by Mary Ellen Carter at 9:26 AM on September 25, 2022 [9 favorites]
Macs didn't have recovery partitions back then. You need either a system/install disk or a bootable USB drive. Legalities aside, you can download OS X Tiger from the Internet Archive. My less complicated recommendation I would be to make a brand new user account that is an administrator, log into that account and delete your old user account.
posted by O9scar at 9:30 AM on September 25, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by O9scar at 9:30 AM on September 25, 2022 [7 favorites]
You could try making a USB stick with ShredOS on it and booting from that.
posted by flabdablet at 9:39 AM on September 25, 2022
posted by flabdablet at 9:39 AM on September 25, 2022
Response by poster: I know I'm not supposed to keep commenting, so this will be my last time. I have subzero tech skills, so many of the options above are beyond me. But maybe I'll just do as Mary Ellen Carter suggests and remove the hard-drive, unless there's some reason not to. That, at least, I can manage, without losing the rest of my Sunday. Thanks everyone.
posted by gigondas at 9:46 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by gigondas at 9:46 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Removing the hard drive is definitely the option with the best likelihood of complete success bang for the tech skills required buck.
If it's a spinny hard disk as opposed to an SSD, you could further amuse yourself by acquiring a set of small Torx screwdrivers and disassembling it (hint: some of the screws you'll need to undo will probably be hiding under a sticky label). That way you can render all data on it completely irretrievable by scratching up the actual disk surfaces with a bit of sandpaper, plus you can get some shiny metal discs to hang up in your fruit trees to discourage bird attacks and a couple of insanely strong little flat magnets for sticking great thick wodges of paperwork securely to the front of your fridge.
But if none of those ideas appeals to you, just beating the shit out of it with a great big hammer works too.
posted by flabdablet at 10:22 AM on September 25, 2022 [7 favorites]
If it's a spinny hard disk as opposed to an SSD, you could further amuse yourself by acquiring a set of small Torx screwdrivers and disassembling it (hint: some of the screws you'll need to undo will probably be hiding under a sticky label). That way you can render all data on it completely irretrievable by scratching up the actual disk surfaces with a bit of sandpaper, plus you can get some shiny metal discs to hang up in your fruit trees to discourage bird attacks and a couple of insanely strong little flat magnets for sticking great thick wodges of paperwork securely to the front of your fridge.
But if none of those ideas appeals to you, just beating the shit out of it with a great big hammer works too.
posted by flabdablet at 10:22 AM on September 25, 2022 [7 favorites]
If it is a very old MacBook, it probably has an optical drive.
You could boot from the system DVD that shipped with the laptop, or obtain one from eBay/IA etc.
Once your laptop is started from the system DVD, run Disk Utility to erase the hard drive.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:05 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
You could boot from the system DVD that shipped with the laptop, or obtain one from eBay/IA etc.
Once your laptop is started from the system DVD, run Disk Utility to erase the hard drive.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:05 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Just take it to the e waste thing. Nobody is going through all of the thousands of donated laptops to find your bank info from almost 2 decades ago. Just drop it off and move on.
posted by jeoc at 11:26 AM on September 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by jeoc at 11:26 AM on September 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
If you're truly concerned about the information that might remain on the drive, simply deleting the files or deleting the account they belong to is not sufficient to guarantee that they are unrecoverable.
Simplifying a bit: deleting a file from most computers' filesystems doesn't mean the information gets erased from the hard drive, it's just that the filename is removed from the directory structure that contains it and the blocks containing its contents are marked free for reuse by the operating system. Over time the contents might be overwritten by other files, but at the time of deletion they are still (generally) there, and can potentially be recovered by a utility that scans the disk looking for orphaned files.
Removing and physically destroying the hard drive will, of course, prevent anyone else from gaining access to them. If you wanted to leave the computer functional but the files unrecoverable, the other option would be to use a secure delete utility that, instead of simply marking files deleted, actually overwrites the disk blocks that stored their contents with random information, often several times. This can be tiresome and time consuming so removing the disk is probably your easiest choice.
On edit: I agree with jeoc that the odds are low that anyone will bother to go through a really old Macbook for the files, but the options I mention above are recommended if you have some special duty to ensure the information is gone. (For example if you have other people's confidential legal or medical info, or proprietary data belonging to clients or employers..)
posted by Nerd of the North at 11:30 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Simplifying a bit: deleting a file from most computers' filesystems doesn't mean the information gets erased from the hard drive, it's just that the filename is removed from the directory structure that contains it and the blocks containing its contents are marked free for reuse by the operating system. Over time the contents might be overwritten by other files, but at the time of deletion they are still (generally) there, and can potentially be recovered by a utility that scans the disk looking for orphaned files.
Removing and physically destroying the hard drive will, of course, prevent anyone else from gaining access to them. If you wanted to leave the computer functional but the files unrecoverable, the other option would be to use a secure delete utility that, instead of simply marking files deleted, actually overwrites the disk blocks that stored their contents with random information, often several times. This can be tiresome and time consuming so removing the disk is probably your easiest choice.
On edit: I agree with jeoc that the odds are low that anyone will bother to go through a really old Macbook for the files, but the options I mention above are recommended if you have some special duty to ensure the information is gone. (For example if you have other people's confidential legal or medical info, or proprietary data belonging to clients or employers..)
posted by Nerd of the North at 11:30 AM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
O9scar's suggestion to simply create a new user and use that to erase the old account is what I would do in this case. It is straight forward and makes any file recovery actual work for whoever the drive ends up. While file recover is technically feasible, it make your drive much harder, relative to all the other drives in a recovery system.
posted by zenon at 3:13 PM on September 25, 2022
posted by zenon at 3:13 PM on September 25, 2022
+1 to get physical. Pull the drive and smash it.
And +1 to how useful HD magnets are. My stud finder is an HD magnet and a bit of string.
posted by Sauce Trough at 6:50 AM on September 26, 2022
And +1 to how useful HD magnets are. My stud finder is an HD magnet and a bit of string.
posted by Sauce Trough at 6:50 AM on September 26, 2022
Just take it to the e waste thing. Nobody is going through all of the thousands of donated laptops to find your bank info from almost 2 decades ago. Just drop it off and move on.
This. But feel free to remove the HD and take it out into the driveway and hammer a spike through it. Then take it to the recycling place with the laptop.
posted by bendy at 7:14 PM on September 26, 2022
This. But feel free to remove the HD and take it out into the driveway and hammer a spike through it. Then take it to the recycling place with the laptop.
posted by bendy at 7:14 PM on September 26, 2022
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